Highlight: Scored his first and second goals for the Wanderers against Newcastle Jets in Round 25 of A-League season 2016/17.Highlight:Highlight:

Description: A tall central defender who has spent the majority of his career in Australia, with 6 seasons at Adelaide United. Despite being born English, he has won 6 caps for the Australian national team. After a rusty start to his Wanderers career, he combined with Jonathan Aspro as a solid if not spectacular central defensive pairing in the second half of season 2016/17.

Robert Cornthwaite did his due diligence on Western Sydney before joining the club and revealed how his conversations with friends among current and former Wanderers players convinced him it was the right way to go.

Cornthwaite already strongly suspected he would be making a good choice joining Wanderers, having kept a close eye on the A-League from Asia, but he told The World Game getting the word first-hand from people like Scott Jamieson and Daniel Mullen was the clincher.

Wanderers left-back Jamieson and former Wanderers defender Mullen, now with Newcastle Jets, both played with Cornthwaite at Adelaide United, where Cornthwaite spent the first six seasons of the A-League before heading overseas.

â€œThe opportunity to come to Western Sydney is not one youâ€™re going to get every day and all the things Iâ€™ve heard about the club and the way they go about their business made me excited to take up the opportunity,â€ Cornthwaite said.

â€œScotty used to live at my house in Adelaide. We shared a place for 12 months or more. I had a couple of good chats with Scotty about Wanderers and he was very positive about it.

â€œEven some of the boys who might not have played as much football as they would have liked at Wanderers, such as Daniel, were still very positive about the club.

â€œI had a chat with â€˜Mullsyâ€™ and even though he left the club he still had good things to say about it. Pretty much everyone I spoke to touched on the high level of professionalism and standards required at Wanderers, which is what you want to hear as a professional player.

â€œThat was all I needed to know.â€

Central defender Cornthwaite described his experience in Asia, where he played four seasons for Jeonnam Dragons in the Korean K-League and the last two with Selangor FC in the Malaysian Super League, as â€œlife-changingâ€.

â€œIt gave me the opportunity to play football at a really high level in Korea, which some players donâ€™t get, and financially I was able to set myself up,â€ he said. â€œIâ€™ve got absolutely no regrets.

â€œThe K-League is one of the top leagues in Asia and always has teams in the last eight or four of the Champions League and just the money that gets thrown around in terms of facilities and foreign players, youâ€™re going to get a higher standard of football.

â€œBut, in saying that, you can see the Aussie sides are starting to mix it with the biggest clubs in Asia. Wanderers won the Champions League two years ago and Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory both advanced from the group stage this year and were unlucky not to get past the round of 16.

â€œItâ€™s a vastly different standard of football and level of professionalism in Malaysia, compared to Korea, but it was still a great life experience.

â€œSouth-East Asia, itâ€™s a fantastic part of the world to live, but my wife, Nel, and I have an 18-month-old daughter, Sahara, and it just made sense to come back to Australia at this time.

â€œItâ€™s good for my wife to have a bit more support and good for myself as well, because the last 18 months itâ€™s really been 24/7 with the little one, as any parent would know.

â€œI think having family close enough, in Adelaide, to make visits possible, and also some family and a lot of friends in Sydney will be a big help.â€

Cornthwaite, who has eight caps for the Socceroos and is a powerful and dominating player at the back with his solid build and 195cm in height, said his first week of training at Wanderers had been â€œa real eye-openerâ€.

â€œIâ€™ve come in to arguably the best set-up in Australia,â€ he said. â€œItâ€™s been a good first week. I arrived back in Sydney on Sunday and started training on Monday, so Iâ€™ve been doing a lot of my medical and testing stuff and getting to know the players, a few of whom I already knew.

â€œPlus, talking to the coaching staff and just learning how they do things. Itâ€™s vastly different to Malaysia. Being here, itâ€™s going to make me a lot stronger and get me into a lot better condition and allow me to play my football at a much higher standard.

In the third instalment of our new series, former Socceroos defender Robbie Cornthwaite pens his own thoughts on his time at Selangor, the volatile nature of Malaysian football and his reasons for heading back to Australia to join Western Sydney Wanderers...

I had a few things happen off the park in recent months, so we felt it was time to think about heading home to Australia. We lost a child when we were in Malaysia. My wife was 22 weeks pregnant and the baby arrived prematurely.

We have another daughter who is 18 months old so it was good to get back to family and friends and for her, you can't beat the Australian lifestyle.

â€œ

The management had decided to go in a different direction ... but we went and won the tournament and that changed everything

The time coincided with Selangor FC being open to the possibility of changing players and myself in particular. We were able to get out of the contract and come to Western Sydney Wanderers and after just a few short weeks, I can't say I have regretted the decision once.

It actually wasnâ€™t the first time Iâ€™d left Selangor! At the start of the [2015] Malaysia Cup, the management had decided to go in a different direction in terms of coaching staff and players. But we went and won the tournament and that changed everything.

Initially the entire coaching staff was replaced and all the foreigners as well and I was told that I could go. But Iâ€™d always had a fantastic relationship with the fans and they rallied and protested the club's decision. The club called me a couple of days later and said that the decision was not an official one and they wanted me to stay.

To be honest, I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay after that. But I then spoke to [then head coach] Mehmet [Durakovic] and he told me that I should. This is a club that is always challenging for trophies, is based in KL and pays on time.

[The fact that for months in 2015 it being was reported that Durakovic was to be replaced by Zainal Abidin Hassan as head coach wasn't a problem for Cornthwaite] If anything, it spurred us on to go and win the Malaysia Cup.

We thought that as they had gone behind our backs to change things, if we can win it they might have a change of heart. After the final it went quiet for a few weeks so we wondered, but then the change was made.

There were no issues with the new coach. In many ways, we had a better team this year with more depth and more talent. The main thing that stands out is how important camaraderie is. I think the closeness last season made a difference. We really were a family. It was the most enjoyable season I had in my career. I had a great time and loved going into training.

Mehmet was the cornerstone of that. He was at the heart. He would always back his players. Even at the halfway mark when the club wanted to change a couple of the Brazilians, Mehmet said no and stuck his neck out for them. They repaid him later.

Some local players signed under the impression that Mehmet would be coach and when he wasn't, they were disappointed. So we started the season on the backfoot, had some injuries and before you know it, you are out of the title race.

There is real potential at Selangor, but it could be run better. Seven months ago, we won the Malaysia Cup for the first time in 11 years. Now, there is not one coach or foreign player from that time still there. In the first 11 there have been six or so new players.

Privatisation is the way to go for the club. Having the government and politics in football is never a good mix. At the end of the day, if you are a politician then you want to win the votes of all the fans.

If you can keep them on your side, you get more votes and fan power has a lot of power, as you saw directly in my case. I am sure that just as much as the club's interest, these politicians are looking out for their own interests.

Politics is always there, under the surface. There is nothing specific that stands out from my time, but you know itâ€™s there. At Selangor, the same people have been in charge for 20 years and are probably still doing the same things today as they always did. It is perhaps time for some fresh faces and ideas.

â€œ

I would still recommend Malaysia to Australians, though only a handful of clubs. You have to go in with open eyes

In Malaysian football in general, there can be an improvement in every aspect. In terms of recruitment, foreign players are always the first ones to go. It is very short sighted. They spend a lot of money on new players and a few months later, if it doesn't work out, they are all gone. There is no gradual process, it is all or nothing.

There is not much protection from the PFA [Professional Footballersâ€™ Association], which has little power. A number of Aussies have done well previously, but were then shown the door for no apparent reason.

I would still recommend Malaysia to Australians, though only a handful of clubs. You have to go in with open eyes. You can't have an ego and have to accept the way that things are done. You can't try to change things too much.

It is the same for foreign coaches too. You can't change too much. It just doesn't work. You have to adapt to the way they do things. You need to work hard to be successful. But the lifestyle is great and it is a competitive league. I would recommend it â€“ but not for younger players.

There are so many reasons why they can do better. The people running the games â€“ you can go on Twitter and see the comments â€“ the infrastructure, the short-sightedness, player recruitment and salaries can all be an issue.

Some clubs can stop paying if results don't go the right way. The overall professionalism needs a revamp. The fans in Malaysia are fantastic and the individual talent is there, but the performance of the national team does not match.

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Maybe, but we had a solidarity at set pieces that hasn't been there for a while. One in front of us in particular which would have been a goal last year, curling in, dangerous, and he put a great headed clearance on it even though he was moving back towards our goal.

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Maybe, but we had a solidarity at set pieces that hasn't been there for a while. One in front of us in particular which would have been a goal last year, curling in, dangerous, and he put a great headed clearance on it even though he was moving back towards our goal.

Yep, we were definitely better at defending set pieces. I don't mind him in there as long as he doesn't try to tiki taka his way out of defence.

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Cornthwaite has been impressive so far vs city since Borda got sent off. Deserves to start

I wasn't happy when he came on but I was pleasantly surprised. He did OK.

Yeah he isn't john Terry, but it's the HAL, and he hasn't played in... ages. Weeks or months? He was solid, and the amount of times the CB pairing had to act and not cock up was decent. He got into Fornaroli a few times and a couple of intercepts, so he is reading the play ok and is quick enough to act.

Aspro seemed to play better than he has with Borda beside him, so I'm feeling cornflakes not only seems more solid than Borda, he may also give our defensive unit more confidence.